It's been out for a while now and I'll be up for buying an ECAD license soon for personal projects. I have a v7 license for Eagle but since I'm quite proficient with AD I think it would be an easy transition. At only $500 it seems like a really nice price-point as I'm not quite up for paying 5k out of pocket for AD.

You can work with it but the last two yearly updates were tiny, no bugs solved. So it's not well maintained. Otherwise, get a trial and use it for yourself. It's the only way to see if it fits within your expectations. But one thing it's sure: it's not Altium Designer.

It's been out for a while now and I'll be up for buying an ECAD license soon for personal projects. I have a v7 license for Eagle but since I'm quite proficient with AD I think it would be an easy transition. At only $500 it seems like a really nice price-point as I'm not quite up for paying 5k out of pocket for AD.

Like the OP, I was familiar with AD when I bought CS. I like CS and it serves me well for the type of boards I do - typ 4 layer, low frequency, medium density SMD.

Libraries and schematics are directly compatible (both ways) between AD and CS. For PCBs, you have to export from AD in PCB5 format and import to CS - you lose the 3D step models but only takes a minute to update the parts from the libraries to restore 3D models and the 3D views are just as good as AD. This process is OK for one offs but if you are working regularly with other people using AD for PCB development it becomes a pain.

The feature I miss most is outjobs. CS outputs are more limited but it gets the job done.You might also miss trace length matching, scripting, object selection by query string.Also, do not expect CS features to be under rapid development! The most notable feature added in the last two years for me was layer sets, nice but not exciting.

You gotta accept that CS is not as well featured as AD and whether CS is suited to you depends on your expectations - definetly run the trial.

As I said, I like CS but am just pointing out the negatives so you are forewarned. If you can accept the above then CS could work well for you.

I moved from Eagle V6 to CS and never looked back. There are some quirks with CS like dropping via's and get the keystrokes in the wrong order can crash CS.......but overall compared to V6 Eagle it was like chalk n cheese!I haven't tried the more recent versions of Eagle so don't know how it compares now.

My only wish with CS is that they put more work into development and fixing bugs......but it's just a crawl these days.

My experience is the same as others. It does the job but has its qwerks. For the money I am happy with the product itself.

My one gripe is that support is a layer removed from Altium. I believe Farnell are supposed to support the product but if you have any difficult questions that require a response from the actual company, they pretty much are not interested. They do not reply to emails regarding CS issues. It leaves a slighlty bad taste in the mouth and is the reason I have stuck with V1.4 instead of paying the yearly figure to upgrade.The software does work and import of step files for library parts is a great feature. I just wish they woul emply someone to handle customer support.

So, CS is a like/hate relationship for me. It has some nice features and you can definitely work with it. My biggest gripe is lack of Altium support. There was a post on the Newark/Farnell site where Altium promised a road map detailing CS plans. The date that was promised seems to have come and gone. I went back to look at that post and noticed it had been edited to no longer include any dates. To me, that signaled a lack of commitment for CS and just reinforces what has been observed in the past.

As mentioned, try the demo, if it is satisfactory for the price point to you, then maybe. But have no expectations of anything meaningful getting fixed or upgraded.

My only other issue is documentation, it is lacking. Some stuff to get you going but any non mainstream tasks you will have to figure out if it's possible on your own. Sometimes a Google search will help you find what you are looking for.

no, i am referring to the fact that they issued an update that just added some uncalled for bling and did not address any of the well known issues. Why are you persecuting me?

I checked my template symbol, it is set to standard, the copy of it was set to mechanical! I also never called the issue a bug as it may have been something I did yet once again another of those complications without explanation. I then went on to get more errors that I ignored as they do not seem to affect the design and I don't have time to help E14 and Altium find bugs they have no intention of fixing, I have a customer that wants a quote! Ever heard of that? having to rely on buggy software to make a living? If I supply faulty goods I get them thrown back and have to issue a refund. But it seems you can produce software that does not work properly and that's OK.

CS used to be $3000 now it's $1000, so does that mean E14 is ripping Altium off and this is why it is so shoddy? but that is not my problem, Altium is big enough to employ the layers to get this right!

As I keep saying, Proteus is cheaper and more stable with free phone support and prompt bug fixing. I only stopped using it because I did not like the workflow and prefer the CS one, without the bugs of course.

Simon, I offer sincere apologies that my comments read that way and I value your contribution to the forum. Sometimes I feel that you concentrate on the negatives of CS but don't mention the positives, then I try to add some balance to it and end up sounding like/being an arse...

I'm still waiting for the promised road map and i live in fear that the product gets pulled altogether. Farnell/E14 are a bunch of useless wankers that don't even know what they have in stock. First they fucked their eagle customers over and fucked them off to autodesk who in turn are reputed to be ruthless bastards that don't give a toss about their products but only about how many people they can hold over a barrel.

Then E14 had the fucking arrogance to invite eagle licence holders to come back and buy a cheaper licence to CS.

And I'm supposed to sit back and feel comfortable. If this pathetic E14/Altium partnership falls apart you can bet CS will be pulled and we will have to buy an AD licence, or rather those with the money will have to.

Altium have already made it clear they don't give a shit about CS as they contact all users after 9 months to invite them "to join the Altium family" which actually means buy AD, despite several people experiencing this James Hariman told me that they definitely do not do this when he took the trouble to call me on my mobile in the UK from Australia.

Frankly this whole thing stinks and I'd rather they quit the politics and pull their fingers out of their ass holes and start to produce some engineering results!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still waiting for the promised road map and i live in fear that the product gets pulled altogether. Farnell/E14 are a bunch of useless wankers that don't even know what they have in stock. First they fucked their eagle customers over and fucked them off to autodesk who in turn are reputed to be ruthless bastards that don't give a toss about their products but only about how many people they can hold over a barrel.

Then E14 had the fucking arrogance to invite eagle licence holders to come back and buy a cheaper licence to CS.

And I'm supposed to sit back and feel comfortable. If this pathetic E14/Altium partnership falls apart you can bet CS will be pulled and we will have to buy an AD licence, or rather those with the money will have to.

Altium have already made it clear they don't give a shit about CS as they contact all users after 9 months to invite them "to join the Altium family" which actually means buy AD, despite several people experiencing this James Hariman told me that they definitely do not do this when he took the trouble to call me on my mobile in the UK from Australia.

Frankly this whole thing stinks and I'd rather they quit the politics and pull their fingers out of their ass holes and start to produce some engineering results!!!!!!!!!!

Not wanting to be a dick, but I could (and did) buy a copy of AD before my first car, and consequently my first car was a 1995 rubbish -- so can you.If you can get it for $5k, then that's way better than what I have paid before.

Probably because it is still true. I just installed a fresh copy of CS and I did not even need the update it came in the download so that update that people paid for is not even an update.

No I won't use something else, I have already spent a lot of money and time on software and I need to stop now. I can't keep remaking libraries.

CS is priced at more than enough so I am sorry and I know it's novel for todays industry and in particular the software one but I want what I paid for!

I'm also better off knowing an Altium product in terms of job seeking in the future. The problem is that Altium is no different to microsoft in it's attitude but we all put up with microsoft because we don't have a choice. It seems that Altium have the same tyrannical power.

Not wanting to be a dick, but I could (and did) buy a copy of AD before my first car, and consequently my first car was a 1995 rubbish -- so can you.If you can get it for $5k, then that's way better than what I have paid before.

You are in china and I am in the UK the comparison is silly, my first car cost $600 and without one employers refuse to employ you.

First they fucked their eagle customers over and fucked them off to autodesk who in turn are reputed to be ruthless bastards that don't give a toss about their products but only about how many people they can hold over a barrel.

Carefull Simon, I have a suspicion that one of those Autodesk/Eagle managers is an active member of this form. :-)

At least it is still affordable, one package I started to use years ago and have not updated for years... Changed hands twice and in the process went from a few hundred to 12k dollars. There are several much cheaper alternatives. But they know it takes time/money move to another product, so are milking customers for all they can.

careful? what of the truth? Autodesk don't sell software, they lease it. Work no longer uses Autocad because of this as it is not our main package. So all those that have been using eagle to my knowledge have to now remain frozen with the last version that in the future may have compatibility issues with windows. So those users who want to benefit from future versions will have to pay constantly for access to the software and once they stop paying are their designs still accessible?

From what i can tell Autodesk has bought well established software packages to harness the profits from the change in licence terms.

Perhaps an Autodesk manager can confirm for us what the new eagle licence terms are. The situation has also been discussed at length on here already.

You are in china and I am in the UK the comparison is silly, my first car cost $600 and without one employers refuse to employ you.

I was then in the US, without a working permit. My first car costed me $1300.My mom gave me $10k on a car, $8.5k went to Altium, and the rest went to my neighbor, who happened to had a 4th hand car.I became the 5th owner of that car.

Your point is pointless. If you want to discuss the price/value of AD go and have a chat on the AD section of this forum. I have already told you that the price of CS is in excess of comparable products.

I've been playing around with the trial and the delta between AD and CS was a bit more than I was expecting. I thought it would be more-or-less a slightly different GUI (Ribbon) then have the Vault, Draftsman, and any simulator hooks stripped out.

Am I missing something or is the "Properties" pane and the "Find Similar" tool not in CS?

I've been playing around with the trial and the delta between AD and CS was a bit more than I was expecting. I thought it would be more-or-less a slightly different GUI (Ribbon) then have the Vault, Draftsman, and any simulator hooks stripped out.

Am I missing something or is the "Properties" pane and the "Find Similar" tool not in CS?

What do you expect, The Altium and Farnell aliance have their crusaders, but nothing takes away from the fact that the software has bugs known to them and I believe about 2 years later and after a promise of an update nothing! except deception.

You are talking about $7500 versus $1000, what did you expect? other than the politics.

I'm not sure what properties pane you are talking about, can you be more specific?

I'm expecting a paired down and simplified version of the full-featured product. Introductory and "prosumer" version that has most of the tools but anything to do with simulation or features that enable corporate use not to be present.

For the Properties pane, I mean the Properties pane. You select anything in AD18 and it lists everything about the part in the pane automatically instead of having to open another window. This made some tasks really quick and easy. For example, if I wanted to quickly set a bunch of components to a common Y-axis value I could just select everything I want, fill-in the Y-Axis value in the properties pane and hit enter. It also felt a lot smoother workflow-wise then having to open countless popup windows when I'm adjusting simple things like text sizes, via diameters, etc.